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Porcupine Pudding and Caramel Sauce
This is merely a development of the caramel custard of our foremothers, but it always reflects credit upon the hostess.
Melt one cup of granulated sugar and one tablespoon of water in a saucepan.
Stir only long enough to melt, then let it cook till it becomes a light brown color. Add one cup of boiling water and stand on the side of the range till the caramel is dissolved. Reserve half of this to pour round the pudding. Stir the remainder, with a half teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt, into a pint of hot milk. Pour this over two whole eggs and four yolks slightly beaten.
Strain into a shallow flat mold or pan, so that the custard is not over two inches deep. Place the mold in a pan of hot water and bake in a very slow oven until firm in the center; test by running in a knife. It should take thirty or forty minutes and will be firm and smooth.
Serve very cold, unmolding onto a flat white and gold dish, with an edge only deep enough to hold the clear goldenbrown sauce as it spreads. The entire top surface of the pudding should be thickly studded with spikes made of almonds, which have been blanched, cut in shreds and browned slightly in the oven.-Anne Warner.
A baked caramel custard, unmolded and spiked with toasted almond shreds for the porcupine effect. The recipe is sound as written; most of what needs translating is the oven and the caramel.
- Very slow ovenRead this as about 275-300F. A custard baked hotter than that curdles at the edges before the center sets, and the whole point here is a smooth unmolded slab.
- The hinge is the caramelCook the sugar to a light brown and no further. Sugar goes from amber to acrid in seconds, and a scorched caramel will taint both the custard and the sauce, which come from the same batch.
- Adding the boiling waterThe syrup will spit violently when the water goes in. Pour it down the side of the pan away from you, off the heat, then return it to low heat to dissolve the hardened caramel. "Stand on the side of the range" means a cool corner of a wood stove top; low heat or a warm burner does the same job.
- Egg ratio and quantitiesA pint is 2 cups of milk; two whole eggs plus four yolks is a rich set for that volume, which is why it unmolds cleanly. Use large eggs.
- Depth matters more than timeThe two-inch limit is the real instruction. In a shallow pan the custard sets in 30-40 minutes; in a deep mold it will take well over an hour and overcook at the rim. Pull it when a knife comes out clean and the center still trembles slightly.
- Water bathHot water to about halfway up the mold, and set the pan on a folded towel or a rack if your oven runs hot from below.
- UnmoldingChill thoroughly, several hours or overnight. Run a thin knife around the edge, dip the base briefly in hot water, and invert onto the serving dish. A shallow rimmed platter, as specified, keeps the reserved caramel sauce from running off.
- The almond spikesBlanch, sliver lengthwise, and toast at 350F for 5-8 minutes; they darken fast at the end. Stud the surface just before serving, since the shreds soften once they sit on cold custard.
- YieldProbably about six servings, though the recipe gives no yield.
Anne Warner's contribution is honest about its ancestry: this is crème caramel, the baked custard set over burnt sugar that runs through nineteenth-century English and American cookery as "caramel custard" or "burnt sugar custard." The novelty is entirely presentational. Sticking a molded dessert with browned almond shreds to suggest quills was a familiar trick of the period — hedgehog and porcupine puddings appear in earlier books built on trifle, sponge cake or apples — and the fashion belongs to a moment when a hostess was expected to send something to the table that looked contrived as well as tasted well. The instruction to unmold onto a "flat white and gold dish" is a reminder of who the reader was assumed to be: a woman with a matched service and, quite possibly, someone in the kitchen to blanch the almonds.